threeASFOUR Spring 2016

threeASFOUR’s spring 2016 collection was a ten-year retrospective look on its design aesthetic, aesthetic that has sustained as separated the brand from other fashion brands. While many fashion pundits would contend that threeASFOUR’s point of view is heavy on concept and weak on consumer viability, many of them miss the point of this groundbreaking fashion brand.

There is such a plethora of American fashion that panders to an American consumer palette that at times is skittish of designers that attempt to expand design aesthetics and points of view. Remember, fashion is both now and next. And if threeasFour’s oeuvre happens to flow more on the side of next instead of now then that is a good thing. Without next there would have been no bikini, silk tuxedoes for women, jersey as appropriate ready-to-wear for women or the man skirt.

For spring 2016 threeASFOUR dress inspiration from topographical layering intermixing with the laser-cut fractal print of the microscopic pictorials of body tissue, veins, capillaries and arteries. This rather graphic—yet beautiful in its own right—print rendering was combined with threeASFOUR’s penchant for curvilinear construction expressed in the brand’s unique understanding of the sacred dimensionality of nature.

What is always exciting about threeasFOUR as a brand is their exquisite ability to stretch the boundaries of masculine and feminine silhouettes. Their particular perspective on asexuality is the next of where fashion is ultimately heading. There really are no tricks in silhouette or construction to subtly express gender, threeasFOUR just goes with the natural curve and scope of the human body, or even sometimes going against that, and what comes out of it, comes out it. And what comes out is always innovative, fresh and of course, fashion forward.

Standouts in this spring 2016 collection were the cotton sateen/neoprene coated cotton silk satin/organza dress, clavicale fractal mycocardium jumpsuit, wishbone tank/bamboo jersey with stretch cotton poplin circle pant, and mesh cotton lung tank with waxed cotton sateen second skin pant.

—William S. Gooch